Quotes about tell (7231 quotes, page 59)

“My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shalt conceive thy reasoning,
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do),
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Dedication
Epipsychidion (1821)

Fear , Beauty , Art , Chance

“Let me tell you something; I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish. (When accused of being a self-loathing Jew; Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 2, Episode 3, "Trick or Treat")”

Larry David (1947) American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer

Hate , Season

“…And tell me what could be more humbling than to be lying in bed at two in the afternoon, without a shower in twelve days; to look across the room you live in and see in the corner a pile of pizza boxes; to be afraid of undrawing the curtains and opening the window, so removed from people so as not to even wonder who would care if you did or if you didn't do this or that; and to find that the day's only scintilla of hope flickers in the moment you reach for the television remote control.”

Zia Haider Rahman British novelist

In The Light of what We Know (2014)

People , Hope , Lying , Box

“That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men’s minds.”

Isaac Asimov book Pebble in the Sky

Source: Pebble in the Sky (1950), chapter 15 “The Odds That Vanished”, p. 136

Men , Stupidity , Intelligence , Despair

“There are still some things we haven’t quite worked out, but we know enough to be sure we’re on the right track. However apparently, our teachers are supposed to tell students that whenever we haven’t figured something out yet, we should stop our research and assume God did it—as if magic counts as an explanation. If we don’t yet know exactly how the first living cells formed, that somehow negates everything we do know to be true about evolution after that. But worse, creationists want to mislead our kids into thinking that every kind of life appeared all at once, ignoring all the evident stages of progression stretched across time, and all the apparent predecessors found in earlier strata. They want to teach as fact outright falsehoods easily disproved, as well as pseudoscience already publicly exposed in a court of law.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Orwellian Legislative Duplicity on HB 1485 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/05/05/orwellian-legislative-duplicity-hb-1485/ (May 5, 2017)

Life , God , Law , Thinking

“I had in my soul the greatest truths to tell, but when I came to the work of telling them I couldn't do it.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

Truth , Soul

“The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of the man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in the Work he does. To work: why, it is to try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Lie , Faith , Law , Intelligence

“Among scientists, I am the second to get it [Bharat Ratna], after C. V. Raman. M. Visveswariah was an engineer, not a scientist. In that sense I am the second scientist to get it. I am happy that Kannadigas are also getting the award. My parents would always tell me to learn Kannada well in my younger days so I could be good both in Kannada and English. Learn to read and write Kannada, then you can learn English and enjoy both languages.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

Scientist wonders why nobody asks him about Dan David prize (2013)

Parent , Sense , Learning , Reading

“Yeah, congratulations. Way to go, Punk, way to go. Congratulations on your big win. You need to enjoy them while you can. You see, you can smirk if you want to, but I see straight through you. When I look at you, I see a fraud. And I'm not talking about the fact that you call yourself the best in the world, I'm talking about you as a person. Because I did a little research this week, Punk, and I found something, a little deep, dirty, dark secret about you. You've been straight edge ever since you came to the WWE, but you've never explained the reasons why. I wanna tell all of these wannabes why you're straight edge. I wanna tell them that you're straight edge because your father is an alcoholic.
Yeah, that's right. Your father was an alcoholic who let you down every step of the way when you were growing up, and it terrifies you. You don't want to end up like him. But it's inevitable that you will, because alcohol is in your blood, it's in your genes, it's part of who you are, and that tortures you. I know you've built this facade, this wall that you're a sarcastic antihero with not a care in the world, but I think I've found something that you care about. I've found something that gives you nightmares, something that terrifies you.
And isn't it ironic that the very alcohol that you crave is the same thing that ruined your childhood? Oh, the nightmares you must have about your father; I almost feel bad for you, Punk. Is that the reason why you have all those tattoos? Was the pain of wanting to drink so bad that you needed the pain of a tattoo needle to take it out of your mind? Was that your only solace?
It doesn't matter if it is, Punk, because you are going to drink eventually, and I'm the one who is going to make you drink. At WrestleMania XXVIII, I'm going to take away your title, I'm gonna take away your claims of being the best in the world, I'm gonna take away your bravado, and I'm gonna leave you a broken man. You're gonna hit bottom, Punk, and when you do, you're going to embrace your destiny, and you're gonna take a drink. And it's gonna taste so good that you're gonna wanna take another one, and another one, and another one. After April 1st, I'm gonna be recognized for who I am—the undisputed best in the world and the new WWE Champion. And you're gonna be recognized for who you are, who your father was—a pathetic damn drunk!”

Chris Jericho (1970) American professional wrestler, musician, television host, podcast host and author

March 12, 2012 - WWE Raw

Pain , Alcohol , Secret , World

“the Indians, were like the weeds. That roses you had to water and give fertilizer or they’d die. But weeds, indigenous plants, you gave them nada-nothing; hell, you even poisoned them and put concrete over them, and those weeds would still break the concrete, reaching for the sunlight of God. “That’s the power of our people,” my father would tell me, “we’re the weeds, LAS YERBAS DE TODO EL MUNDO!””

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

God , People , Hell , Water

“I think right now is the moment. This is the beginning. We don’t know what is it the moment of, and maybe something much crazier will happen. But really, we see the sunshine coming in. It was clouded for maybe a hundred years. Our whole condition was very sad, but we still feel warmth, and the life in our bodies can still tell that there is excitement in there, even though death is waiting. We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Tinari, Philip, and Angie Baecker, eds. Hans Ulrich Obrist: The China Interviews. Beijing: Office for Discourse Engineering, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Life , Death , Sadness , Feeling

“Christ, you're dragging me out for that? I can tell you what they'll say. They'll drag out the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. They'll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can't tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. They'll tell us we're stealing from ISPs. It's what they say every time someone tries this: Philly, New York, London. All around the world same song.”

Cory Doctorow Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)

World , Communication , Time , Christ

“Dianetics is not in any way covered by legislation anywhere, for no law can prevent one man sitting down and telling another man his troubles, and if anyone wants a monopoly on dianetics, be assured that he wants it for reasons which have to do not with dianetics but with profit.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

1987 Edition, p. 226.
Dianetics : The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950)

Law , Way

“Human communities are ecosystems. Ecosystems are biological, chemical and physical systems. The physics, chemistry and biology of complex self-organizing systems can tell us much that is useful about human communities: about the conditions necessary for the existence of human communities, about the properties human communities 'inherit' because they are special cases of more general kinds of systems, particularly ecosystems.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 159

Communication

“The same dark spirit of domination has led them to — for the first time in American history — imprison American citizens with no charges, no right to see a lawyer, no right to notify their family, no right to know of what they are accused, and no right to gain access to any court to present an appeal of any sort. The Bush Administration has even acquired the power to compel librarians to tell them what any American is reading, and to compel them to keep silent about the request — or else the librarians themselves can also be imprisoned.
They have launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, on the right of the courts to review their actions, on the right of the Congress to have information to how they are spending the public's money and the right of the news media to have information about the policies they are pursuing.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

Money , Family , History , Time

“I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Ministers are like fraudsters in the fairy tale, telling gullible Liberal Democrat MPs about the beautiful progressive clothes that the emperor is wearing, if only they are clever enough and loyal enough to see them. And desperately, we have Liberal Democrats clinging to shreds of invisible cloth, reaching deep into their Liberal and Conservative history to pretend that they can be progressive now. They are claiming that Keynes might have backed the Budget. They are calling on Beveridge for support, kidding themselves that they can call on their history and that they are following in the footsteps of great liberal Conservatives like Winston Churchill, who supported the minimum wage, but the truth is that the emperor has no clothes.
The truth is that if you look at the detail, the Budget is nastier than any brought in by Margaret Thatcher. Instead of Churchill, Keynes or the founders of the welfare state, the Liberal Democrats have signed up, with the Right Honourable Member for Chingford and his Chancellor, to cut support for the poor. It is perhaps apt that in this week of World Cup disappointments, it was actually a footballer who got it right. In 2002, after England were defeated in the World Cup by Brazil, Gareth Southgate reflected ruefully on England's performance and said:
"We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith."
That is the reality for the Liberal Democrats now. With all their high hopes, they have betrayed the poor and the vulnerable, whom they stood up to defend.
[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb) rose]
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a history of supporting people on low incomes and I do not know why he is betraying it now.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

During a budget response debate http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100628/debtext/100628-0012.htm, 28 July, 2010. Link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtORBuxY0MU.

People , Truth , World , Beauty

“It is the business of the production engineer to know every single item that constitutes his finished product, and every step involved in the handling of every piece. He must know what is the most advantageous manufacturing quantity of every single item so as to secure uniformity of flow as well as economy of manufacture. He must know how long each step ought to take under the best attainable working conditions. He must be able to tell at any time the exact condition as regards quantity and state of finishedness of every part involved in his manufacturing process.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

Source: "Industrial Engineering," 1905, p. 67

Business , Time , Parting

“"It is enough", this malicious man tells us, "to extinguish the line of the defeated prince." Can one read this without quivering in horror and indignation?”

Frederick II of Prussia book Anti-Machiavel

Source: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 3 : Mixed Principalities

Reading

“My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"On Flying" (1985)
1980s, At Home (1988)

“So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is — we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

The Rush Limbaugh Show
2011-03-01
Radio, quoted in * Limbaugh's Misogynistic Attack On Georgetown Law Student Continues With Increased Vitriol
Media Matters for America
2009-03-09
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203010012

Sex

“In fact, as they will be delighted to tell you, Taunton is no longer a one-horse town
these days, they have a bicycle as well.”

Tom Holt book Expecting Someone Taller

Expecting Someone Taller (1987)

Horse

“I don’t need to know most of what’s fed to us by newspapers and the TV. It’s largely useless information and daily moaning. There are only a few things in business that I really want to know about. Tell me about manufacturing productivity, employment, the balance of payments and borrowing levels. With these things you can decide on how to run a business, a constituency or even a country.”

Ivor Tiefenbrun (1946) Scottish businessman

INTERVIEW: Ivor Tiefenbrun – Of High Fidelity & Integrity http://www.hnwmagazine.co.uk/interview-ivor-tiefenbrun-high-fidelity-high-integrity/, HNW Magazine, 2 December 2012.
2012

Business , Country

“What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It’s we who are.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 110

God , People , Way , History

“So often, people ask me what is the key to success in this industry… or what would be my best advice to give to new comers… and though there are many things I could tell you from my personal experience, persistence and consistency seems to be a common thread to everything I have to say.”

Nikki SooHoo (1988) American actress

Persistently Consistent http://nikkisoohoo.com/blog/2017/10/22/persistently-consistent (October 22, 2017)

People , Success , Personality

“A person with no children says, "Well I just love children," and you say "Why?" and they say, "Because a child is so truthful, that's what I love about 'em — they tell the truth." That's a lie, I've got five of 'em. The only time they tell the truth is if they're having pain.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Himself (1983)

Love , Pain , Children , Truth

“For God's sake, sit down. You look like a Calvinist rector telling his flock about Hell.”

Paul Bowles book Let It Come Down

Source: Let It Come Down (1952), p. 231

God , Hell

“He is probably choking on a pretzel or something. I hope nobody tells him that I have won this award while he is eating a pretzel. … He has the funniest lines in the film. I am eternally grateful to him.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

Statement about US President George W. Bush, at press conference after winning the top prize at the Cannes film festival for Fahrenheit 9/11; quoted in Reuters reports (22 May 2004) http://guardianangels-mn.org/Minnesota/Too-funny-to-keep-in-mn.politics.html and in [Moore scoops Palme d'Or with attack on US president, Patrick, Barkham, The Guardian, 24 May 2004, http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2004/story/0,,1223156,00.html]
2004

Hope

“She loved her teaching and she got frustrated when one of her students said, well, what do you expect, I’m just from Arkansas. She said, don’t tell me that, you’re as smart as anybody, you’ve just got to believe in yourself and work hard and set high goals. She believed that anybody could make it.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

2010s, (July 26, 2016)

Love

“The great quality teacher, Shoji Shiba, often tells people that the biggest barrier to changing understanding is the following word: IAKI, which is not a Japanese word at all. It is an acronym for I ALREADY KNOW IT… Professor Shiba then goes on to say: “Yes, you may know it, but you don't know how to do it!” There is an enormous difference between knowledge and know-how… Too many executives believe that if they listen to a lecture or read a book they will know how to do something…. Nobody ever became a great lover by just reading a book or watching a video. You have to get in and do it. There are some things you can only learn through experience.”

Myron Tribus (1921–2016) American academic

Myron Tribus "You Cannot Lead What You Do Not Understand — You Do Not Understand What You Haven't Done". Journal of Innovative Management, Fall 1996; As quoted in: William J. Altier (1999) The Thinking Manager's Toolbox. p. 9

People , Books , Lovers , Understanding

“The misconception that costs determined prices prevented economists for a long time from recognizing that it was prices which operated as the indispensable signals telling producers what costs it was worth expending on the production of the various commodities and services, and not the other way around. It was the costs which they had expended which determined the prices of things produced.It was this crucial insight which finally broke through and established itself about a hundred years ago through the so-called marginal revolution in economics.The chief insight gained by modern economists is that the market is essentially an ordering mechanism, growing up without anybody wholly understanding it, that enables us to utilize widely dispersed information about the significance of circumstances of which we are mostly ignorant. However, the various planners (and not only the planners in the socialist camp) and dirigists have still not yet grasped this.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance"
Source: http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/coping-with-ignorance/

Understanding , Time , Way

“Go and tell that nasty, rude little princess that we've known each other for long enough and gabbed enough in ladies' rooms that she should skip the ho-hum royal routine and just pop over here and ask me herself. … Tell her I'll sing if she christens a ship first.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

Garland's annoyed response to a note from Princess Margaret "commanding" her to sing at a party in 1965, as quoted in Princess Margaret : A Biography (1977) by Theo Aronson.

Singing , Princess

“The sheer decibel level of unreason surrounding the issue of abortion in academic writing about animal rights tells us something interesting. It suggests that, contrary to what the utilitarians and feminists working this terrain wish, the dots between sympathy for animals and sympathy for unborn humans are in fact quite easy to connect—so easy, you might say, that a child could do it. … Since ethical vegetarianism as a practice appears commonly rooted in an a priori aversion to violence against living creatures, so does it often appear to begin in the young. … A sudden insight, igniting empathy on a scale that did not exist before and perhaps even a life-transforming realization—this reaction should indeed be thought through with care. It is not only the most commonly cited feature of the decision to become a vegetarian. It is also the most commonly cited denominator of what brings people to their convictions about the desperate need to protect unborn, innocent human life. … Despite those who act and write in their name, actual vegetarians and vegans are far more likely to be motivated by positive feelings for animals than by negative feelings for human beings. As a matter of theory, the line connecting the dots between “we should respect animal life” and “we should respect human life” is far straighter than the line connecting vegetarianism to antilife feminism or antihumanist utilitarianism.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

"Pro-Animal, Pro-Life" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/pro-animal-pro-life, in First Things (June 2009).

Life , People , Feeling , Motivation

““Tell me, scientist to scientist, do you honestly think it will work?”
“We won’t know until we try,” Naqi said. Any other answer would have been politically hazardous: too much optimism and the politicians would have started asking just why the expensive project was needed in the first place. Too much pessimism and they would ask exactly the same question.”

Alastair Reynolds book Diamond Dogs

Turquoise Days, Chapter 2 (pp. 240-241)
Short fiction, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)

Optimism , Question , Thinking

“You've got to be kidding me, you're doing great. The country's really proud of the team. A lot of people that didn't know anything about soccer, like me, are all excited and pulling for you. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate it. I just got off the phone a little earlier with the president of Mexico. I was gracious. I hadn't declared victory yet, but I felt pretty confident. Yeah, well God bless you all. Tell the team how proud we are. Alright, well give it all you got. I know you will. God bless you and I look forward to a great victory.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Telephone call with https://listenonrepeat.com/watch?v=-hzbmDRsgxg Bruce Arena (June 16, 2002)
2000s, 2002

God , People , Confidence , Victory

“I can’t tell someone that their dreams are impossible.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Dreams

“I can tell you I wrote every single word in this [her first children's] book -- in English and Spanish. I've been writing poetry and stories since I was a kid. And I am a songwriter. But you have limitations when you are a songwriter.... It was really a luxury to have 31 pages to expound upon.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

The Chicago Tribune (October 16, 2005)
2007, 2008

Children , Books

“I tell you, I'd be lucky to hit.280 in New York. There are too many people in New York, and if you don't want to be a bad guy, you must go to all the dinners and meetings. How could I concentrate on baseball? I have so many good friends in New York that it is hard to turn them down. But it is that way every place on the road. I tell the hotel that I will not be disturb, [sic] but people find me anyway.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking after the 1972 NLCS, as quoted in "Puerto Rico Has Lost a Hero"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

People , Way , Guy

“And here is the deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam: It is a religion that promotes pedophilia - sex with children. This so-called prophet Muhammad raped a 9-year-old girl - had sex with her… Around the world today, you have Muslim men having sex with 4-year-old girls, taking them as their brides, because they believe the prophet Muhammad did… I believe, as Christians and conservatives, it's time to take off the gloves and stand up and tell the truth about this evil, evil religion.”

Robert Jeffress (1955) Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas

"Ask The Pastor", First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, , quoted in * 2010-09-05
Dallas pastor's broad-brush criticism of Islam goes way too far
Steve
Blow
The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/steve-blow/20100904-Dallas-pastor-s-broad-brush-criticism-8678.ece

Men , Children , Truth , Secret

“I heard one of the teaching pastors at Willow Creek speak on the rich young ruler text that Rich (Mullins) had talked about in Wheaton's chapel. The teaching pastor had said, "now this doesn't mean you have to go sell your rollerblades and golf clubs," and he went on to "contextualize" the teaching to show that we just need to be careful not to make idols of our things. I wasn't so sure about that. Jesus doesn't tell the man to be a better steward, or to treat his workers fairly, or not to make money an idol. He tells this highly educated and devoutly religious young man that he lacks one thing: giving up everything he owns to give the poor.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 103

Money , Education

“Let us invent a character, a nice respectable, middle-class, middle-aged, maiden lady, with time on her hands and the money to help her pass it. She enjoys pictures, books, music, and the theatre and though to none of these arts (or rather, for consistency's sake, to none of these three arts and the one craft) does she bring much knowledge or discernment, at least, as she is apt to tell her cronies, she "does know what she likes."”

Terence Rattigan (1911–1977) playwright, screenwriter

Let us call her Aunt Edna.
The Collected Plays of Terence Rattigan (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1953) vol. 1, p. xi.

Money , Books , Age , Art

“Now I've got this moniker that I'm the foot-in-mouth gal, and I keep thinking, In what way? Because I said something you don't agree with? Because I said something you don't like? I'm just telling you my opinion. I hate the idea that I can't be honest about how I feel about things because it's going to piss somebody off who feels differently. That seems preposterous to me.”

Katherine Heigl (1978) American actress and film producer

InStyle magazine (2009)

Hate , Way , Feeling , Idea

“Who knows how to make love stay? Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Love , World , Making love , Painting

“If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Authors@Google, August 16, 2007, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs&feature=youtu.be&t=1h6m59s
2000s, 2007

Feeling , Waiting , Hurt

“The systems view of nature and man is clearly non- anthropocentric, but it is not non-humanistic for all that. It allows us to understand that man is one species of system in a complex and embracing hierarchy of nature, and at the same time it tells us that all systems have value and intrinsic worth. They are goal-oriented, self-maintaining, and self-creating expressions of nature's penchant for order and adjustment. The status of man is not lessened by admitting the amoeba as his kin, nor by recognizing that sociocultural systems are his supersystems. Seeing himself as a connecting link in a complex natural hierarchy cancels man's anthropocentrism, but seeing the hierarchy itself as an expression of self-ordering and self-creating nature bolsters his self-esteem and encourages his humanism.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 118.

Understanding , Nature , Time

“Every now and again I get approached by "celebrities" [saying] "oh, you're doing a great job mate, I think it's wonderful what you're doing". Ok, and what you're gonna do? You're gonna make a freaking film now, aren't you? You're gonna make another bloody record! You're gonna stand in front of tens of thousands of people, you're gonna go on chat shows watched by millions of people! Are you gonna bring this subject up yourself? No! Why? "Me, me, me!" "I don't wanna affect my carrer!" I tell you… anyone in the public eye - come nowhere near me unless you are prepared to put your-bloody-self when your mouth is. Walk the talk or walk the other way!”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Source: Icke's Remember Who You Are event, 2012

People , Way , Thinking

“You break into my house, I will shoot you. My wife will shoot you and then spend thirty minutes telling you why she shot you.”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Totally Committed (1998)

Housing

“I can tell you that it is no game for children, and I will confess that, in spite of my nine campaigns, I felt myself turn pale when the first ball flashed past me.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Of cricket) Adventures of Gerard (1903

Children , Game , Past

“Even where it is manipulated by major talents, deconstruction tends to bear either on marginal texts (Sade, Lautréamont), or on secondary work by a great writer (Barthes on Balzac's Sarrazine). The classics of deconstruction, in Jacques Derrida or Paul De Man, are "misreadings" not of literature but of philosophy; they address themselves to philosophical linguistics and the theory of language. The masks they seek to strip off are those worn by Plato, by Hegel, by Rousseau, by Nietszche or Saussure. Deconstruction has nothing to tell us of Aeschylus or Dante, of Shakespeare or Tolstoy.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: Real Presences (1989), II: The Broken Contract, Ch. 8 (p. 128).

Literature

“Please tell me you're just feeling tired
cause if it's more than that I feel that I might break”

Chris Carrabba (1975) American musician

Again I Go Unnoticed

Feeling

“You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out
And keep the memory alive.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway).
Song lyrics, Turnstiles (1976)

World , Way , Light , Memory

“Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Waking Up (2014), p. 8

Truth , World , Way , Thinking

“.. I kissed the hand of Don Alvise Davila, who said he was your friend, and begged me to tell you he would soon prove it. I would have done the same by Signor Antonio da Leva, but that there was no time. He came to see the Emperor [Charles V], and only staid half a day, and there were so many visitors that I could not kiss his hand. But should we meet I shall do my duty, and attend to your interests without regard to the consequences. No more on this head. Here nothing is heard but the roll of drums, and everyone is starting for France. I hope soon to be with you, when we shall have much to say to each other. Bas las manos a vuestra merced and also those of Alvise Anichini.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

Quote in his letter to Titian's friend and agent Pietro Aretino, From Asti, 31 May, 1536; in Lettere a Pietro Aretino, i. p. 146 and reprinted in Ticozzi (Vecelli, p. 309); transl. J.A.Y. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle
At Asti, it would seem, Titian was quite in Spanish waters. He doubtless met and perhaps again portrayed the Emperor Charles V.
1510-1540

Hope , Kiss , Time

“I will teach you French so you can tell the world that you are macedonians”

Gotse Delchev (1872–1903) revolutionary from the Balkans

Goce Delčev teaching in Bansko, Strumica, Macedonia.

World

“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know. But — but I'll tell you what. That will be a horrible day. If — if Hillary gets to put her judges — right now, we're tied. You see what's going on.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on August 9, 2016 ([Donald Trump Suggests ‘Second Amendment People' Could Act Against Hillary Clinton, The New York Times, Nick, Corasaniti, w:Maggie Haberman, Maggie, Haberman, August 9, 2016, November 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html]; [Donald Trump hints at assassination of Hillary Clinton by gun rights supporters, David, Smith, August 10, 2016, November 15, 2018, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/trump-gun-owners-clinton-judges-second-amendment]).
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / 2010s / 2016 / August
2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

People

“What you could do with is a nice strong cup of tea, sir. I’ll tell the kuki to make you one.’
‘Does it really do any good, Nabby? (That was better.) ‘I’ve tried every damn thing.’….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

Strong , Tea

“How shall I tell what I saw? The towers are not all broken — here and there one still stands, like a great tree in a forest, and the birds nest high. But the towers themselves look blind, for the gods are gone. I saw a fishhawk, catching fish in the river. I saw a little dance of white butterflies over a great heap of broken stones and columns. I went there and looked about me — there was a carved stone with cut — letters, broken in half. I can read letters but I could not understand these. They said UBTREAS. There was also the shattered image of a man or a god. It had been made of white stone and he wore his hair tied back like a woman's. His name was ASHING, as I read on the cracked half of a stone. I thought it wise to pray to ASHING, though I do not know that god.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

God , Understanding , Bird , Fish

“Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly. And don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go — and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

As quoted in Time (17 February 1958)

Law

“Archaeology of the future is what it should be called. Archaeology of the past is very interesting because it tells us what we once were. But archaeology of the future is the study of what we're going to become, what we have a chance to become…it's a missing element in our understanding of the universe which tells us what our future is like, and what our place in the universe is. If there's nobody else out there, that's also quite important to know.”

Philip Morrison (1915–2005) American astrophysicist

On SETI, Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True (1995)

Understanding , Study , Universe , Chance

“The point I would make is that the novelist and the historian are seeking the same thing: the truth — not a different truth: the same truth — only they reach it, or try to reach it, by different routes. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust, preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process, they both want to tell us how it was: to re-create it, by their separate methods, and make it live again in the world around them.”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1986), 815. ISBN 0-394-74623-6.

Truth , World , Imagination , Memory

“Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow—never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Life , Lie , Beauty , Failure

“In the really hard cases you're choosing between the disastrous and the catastrophic, and it's hard to tell someone which one is which.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Quoted by Graham Allison , in A Conversation with Henry Kissinger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPqxISYxjcI

“Evolution is the conviction that organisms developed their current forms by an extended history of continual transformation, and that ties of genealogy bind all living things into one nexus. Panselectionism is a denial of history, for perfection covers the tracks of time. A perfect wing may have evolved to its current state, but it may have been created just as we find it. We simply cannot tell if perfection be our only evidence. As Darwin himself understood so well, the primary proofs of evolution are oddities and imperfections that must record pathways of historical descent—the panda's thumb and the flamingo's smile of my book titles”

Stephen Jay Gould book Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle

chosen to illustrate this paramount principle of history
Source: Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (1987), p. 84

Books , Smile , History , Time

“Although the Special Theory of Relativity does not account for electromagnetic phenomena, it explains many of their properties. General Relativity, however, tells us nothing about electromagnetism. In Einstein's space-time continuum gravitational forces are absorbed in the geometry, but the electromagnetic forces are quite unaffected. Various attempts have been made to generate the geometry of space-time so as to produce a unified field theory incorporating both gravitational and electromagnetic forces.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

p, 125
The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Time

“Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 157
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)

Way , History

“Wallace's emotions on discovering such marvels must surely be echoed by all of us who follow him. This is what he wrote:
"I thought of the long ages of the past during which the successive generations of these things of beauty had run their course. Year by year being born and living and dying amid these dark gloomy woods with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness, to all appearances such a wanton waste of beauty. It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man, many of them have no relation to him, their happiness and enjoyment's, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone."”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines, quoting from The Malay Archipelago (1869) by Alfred Russel Wallace.
Attenborough in Paradise (1996)

Love , Life , Death , Hate

“For conversation well endued;
She calls it witty to be rude;
And, placing raillery in railing,
Will tell aloud your greatest failing.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

The Furniture of a Woman's Mind (1727)

“Yes, my brethren, Christ will reign — must reign. O what a grand, glorious destiny awaits us who are saved! I stand in the presence of a scheme that I have neither power to comprehend nor to delineate. I tell you, when the end shall come, and God Almighty shall gather into His kingdom the souls and bodies of men saved upon the earth, they will reach the pinnacle of eternal life in all its splendor! Happy, happy will be the day when you and I, by God's grace, stand in full proportion on the granite platform of an eternal, happy immortality!”

David Seth Doggett (1810–1880) American bishop

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 211.

Life , Men , God , Soul

“An untruth must be spoken, where need requires. For whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object. Men lie, because they think to gain by deceiving others; and speak the truth, because they expect to get something by their true speaking, and to be trusted afterwards in more important matters. Thus, though their conduct is so opposite, the end of both is alike. If there were no gain to be got, your true-speaking man would tell untruths as much as your liar, and your liar would tell the truth as much as your true-speaking man.”

Darius I of Persia (-550–-486 BC) 3rd king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–486 BC)

As quoted in The Histories by Herodotus, 3.72
The validity of the quote is questionable. http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Heropers.html
Attributed

Men , Truth , Lie , Thinking

“It is hard to tell where the MCC ends and the Church of England begins.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

The New Statesman, July 20, 1962, p. 7.

“Lithuania, my country! You are as good health;
How much one should prize you, he only can tell, Who has lost you…”

Adam Mickiewicz Pan Tadeusz

Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił...
Opening lines, translated by Marcel Weyland
Pan Tadeusz (Sir Thaddeus) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_pan.htm

Health , Country

“My whole concept of economics is based on the idea that we have to explain how prices operate as signals, telling people what they ought to do in particular circumstances. The approach to this problem has been blocked by a cost or labor theory of value, which assumes that prices are determined by the technical conditions of production only. The important question is to explain how the interaction of a great number of people, each possessing only limited knowledge, will bring about an order that could only be achieved by deliberate direction taken by somebody who has the combined knowledge of all these individuals. However, central planning cannot take direct account of particular circumstances of time and place. Additionally, every individual has important bits of information which cannot possibly be conveyed to a central authority in statistical form. In a system in which the knowledge of relevant data is dispersed among millions of agents, prices can act to coordinate the separate actions of different individuals.
Given this context, it is intellectually not satisfactory to attempt to establish causal relations between aggregates or averages in the manner in which the discipline of macroeconomics has attempted to do. Individuals do not make decisions on the basis of partial knowledge of magnitudes such as the total amount of production, or the total quantity of money. Aggregative theorizing leads nowhere.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, A Conversation with Professor Friedrich A. Hayek (1979)

Money , People , Idea , Question

“If it be granted that the Britons, generally speaking, were expert in hunting, it is still uncertain what animals were obnoxious to the chase; we know however, at least, that the hare was not anciently included; for Cæser tells us, "the Britons did not eat the flesh of hares, notwithstanding the island abounded with them." And this abstinence, he adds, arose from a principle of religion; which principle, no doubt, prevented them from being worried to death: a cruelty reserved for more enlightened ages.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 2
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Britons

Death , Age , Religion , Animals

“Tell him to live by yes and no — yes to everything good, no to everything bad.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

As quoted in The Thought and Character of William James (1935) by Ralph Barton Perry, Vol. II, ch. 91
1890s

“I sometimes wonder if my requests are legitimate. So I'm honest with God. I say, "Lord, I don't know if I have the right to ask for this. I don't know how I should pray about it. But I hand it over to your now, and if you'll tell me how to pray, I'll pray your way."”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

God , Way

“If you have an awareness that your life is not full and that you are not yourself, that is the beginning, I think, of the journey toward spirituality. I don't have a clue what God is; I really don't. I would never, ever and tell anyone what to look for. The only thing I would say is: the journey to spirituality is the journey to your own humanity. The more human you are, I think, the more godlike you are. And that is the genius of God.”

Martin Sheen (1940) American actor

2000s, AARP magazine interview (2008)

Life , God , Thinking

“I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)

God , Truth

“You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Misattributed

Men , Children

“The moral relativists ask: what do you mean by should? Here's how you should act: Act in a way so that things are good for you like they would be for someone you're taking care of. But they have to be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, and they have to be good for you and your family also in a way that's good for society (and maybe even good for the broader environment if you can manage that), so it's balanced at all those levels. And it has to be good for you, your family, and society right now, AND next week, AND next month, AND a year from now, AND ten years from now. It's this harmonious balancing of multiple layers of Being simultaneously, and that's a Darwinian reality, I would say. Your brain is actually attuned to tell you when you are doing that. And the way it tells you is that it reveals that what you're doing is meaningful. That's the sign. Your nervous system is adapted to do this. It's adapted to exist on the edge between order and chaos. Chaos is where things are so complex that you can't handle it, and order is where things are so rigid that it's too restrictive. In between that, there's a place. It's a place that's meaningful. It's where you're partly stabilized, and partly curious. You're operating in a manner that increases your scope of knowledge, so you're inquiring and growing, and at the same time you're stabilizing and renewing you, your family, society, nature; now, next week, next month, and next year. When you have an intimation of meaning, then you know you're there.""Lies and deception destroy people's lives. When they start telling the truth and acting it out, things get a lot better.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People , Truth , Family , Way

““It happened that Mahmud had long been planning an expedition into Bhardana, and Gujarat, to destroy the idol temple of Somnat, a place of great sanctity to all Hindus. So as soon as he had returned to Ghazni from his Khurasan business, he issued a farman to the General of the army, ordering him to leave a confidential officer in charge of the fort of Kabuliz, and himself to join the court with his son Salar Mas‘ud…
“It is related in the Tarikh-i Mahmudi that the Sultan shortly after reached Ghazni, and laid down the image of Somnat at the threshold of the Mosque of Ghazni, so that the Musulmans might tread upon the breast of the idol on their way to and from their devotions. As soon as the unbelievers heard of this, they sent an embassy to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi, stating that the idol was of stone and useless to the Musulmans, and offered to give twice its weight in gold as a ransom, if it might be returned to them. Khwaja Hasan Maimandi represented to the Sultan that the unbelievers had offered twice the weight of the idol in gold, and had agreed to be subject to him. He added, that the best policy would be to take the gold and restore the image, thereby attaching die people to his Government. The Sultan yielded to the advice of the Khwaja, and the unbelievers paid the gold into the treasury.
“One day, when the Sultan was seated on his throne, the ambassadors of the unbelievers came, and humbly petitioned thus: ‘Oh, Lord of the world! we have paid the gold to your Government in ransom, but have not yet received our purchase, the idol Somnat.’ The Sultan was wroth at their words, and, falling into reflection, broke up the assembly and retired, with his dear Salar Mas‘ud, into his private apartments. He then asked his opinion as to whether the image ought to be restored, or not? Salar Mas‘ud, who was perfect in goodness, said quickly, ‘In the day of the resurrection, when the Almighty shall call for Ãzar, the idol-destroyer, and Mahmud, the idol-seller, Sire! what will you say?’ This speech deeply affected the Sultan, he was full of grief, and answered, ‘I have given my word; it will be a breach of promise.’ Salar Mas‘ud begged him to make over the idol to him, and tell the unbelievers to get it from him. The Sultan agreed; and Salar Mas‘ud took it to his house, and, breaking off its nose and ears, ground them to powder.
“When Khwaja Hasan introduced the unbelievers, and asked the Sultan to give orders to restore the image to them, his majesty replied that Salar Mas‘ud had carried it off to his house, and that he might send them to get it from him. Khwaja Hasan, bowing his head, repeated these words in Arabic, ‘No easy matter is it to recover anything which has fallen into the hands of a lion.’ He then told the unbelievers that the idol was with Salar Mas‘ud, and that they were at liberty to go and fetch it. So they went to Mas‘ud’s door and demanded their god.
“That prince commanded Malik Nekbakht to treat them courteously, and make them be seated; then to mix the dust of the nose and ears of the idol with sandal and the lime eaten with betel-nut, and present it to them. The unbelievers were delighted, and smeared themselves with sandal, and ate the betel-leaf. After a while they asked for the idol, when Salar Mas‘ud said he had given it to them. They inquired, with astonishment, what he meant by saying that they had received the idol? And Malik Nekbakht explained that it was mixed with the sandal and betel-lime. Some began to vomit, while others went weeping and lamenting to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi and told him what had occurred…”
“Afterwards the image of Somnat was divided into four parts, as is described in the Tawarikh-i-Mahmudi. Mahmud’s first exploit is said to have been conquering the Hindu rebels, destroying the forts and the idol temples of the Rai Ajipal (Jaipal), and subduing the country of India. His second, the expedition into Harradawa and Guzerat, the carrying off the idol of Somnat, and dividing it into four pieces, one of which he is reported to have placed on the threshold of the Imperial Palace, while he sent two others to Mecca and Medina respectively. Both these exploits were performed at the suggestion, and by the advice, of the General and Salar Mas‘ud; but India was conquered by the efforts of Salar Mas‘ud alone, and the idol of Somnat was broken in pieces by his sold advice, as has been related. Salar Sahu was Sultan of the army and General of the forces in Iran…”

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India

Somnath (Gujarat), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547

God , People , World , Way

“Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech at the University of Kansas at Lawrence http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Robert-F-Kennedy-at-the-University-of-Kansas-March-18-1968.aspx (18 March 1968)

Life , Wisdom , Marriage , Children

“Be realistic and truthful - and tell Hong Kong businessmen honestly that they should go for long-term investments since it is unlikely money can be made in the short haul. AZ Quotes”

Zhu Rongji (1928) former Premier of the People's Republic of China

As quoted in [http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/29/hk.gowest.willy/index.html China's hard sell in the mild, mild west in CNN news (29 May, 2001).

Money , Truth , Quotes

“When you have sweated, toiled, had mad dreams, hopeless nightmares, you find yourself in London's streets, cold and dank in the night air. Think — what have I got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this; early this morning I signed my death warrant. I thought at the time how odd, how ridiculous — a bullet may just as well have done the job five years ago.”

Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922) Irish revolutionary leader

Liam, Cathal (2006). Blood on the Shamrock: A Novel of Ireland's Continued Struggle for Freedom 1921-1924. St. Padraic Press, p. 194.

Death , Dreams , Thinking , Time

“Naroin stopped, shook her head. “Take it from an experienced hand, child. It’s no good blamin’ yourself for what you couldn’t prevent. Not so long as you tried.”
Maia’s lips pressed together. That was exactly what she had been telling herself. From the look in Naroin’s eyes, it didn’t get much more believable as you got older.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 26 (p. 514)

“When he comes around. Do not tell him nothing. Do not make a sound. Cos if he knows we're there he might tear his heart out. And beat us to death with it.”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

All At Once
Song lyrics

Death , Tear , Heart

“Meet me by the fishin' hole and wear your leather britches.
Tell your ma and pa everything's all right.
We're really goin' fishin' next Saturday night.”

Tex Atchison (1912–1982) American musician

Song We're Gonna Go Fishin' http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=25201

Night

“Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as refined as ever Athens heard;
And (strange to tell) he practis'd what he preach'd.”

John Armstrong (1709–1779) British poet

Book IV, line 301.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

Truth

“Tell me all the plans
You have for the great beyond,
Will you be physical again
Or be a cosmic vagabond?”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"All Things (Mia ia io)"
Warpaint (1991)

“Man's conception of what is most worth knowing and reflecting upon, of what may best compel his scholarly energies, has changed greatly with the years. His earliest impressions were of his own insignificance and of the stupendous powers and forces by which he was surrounded and ruled. The heavenly fires, the storm-cloud and the thunderbolt, the rush of waters and the change of seasons, all filled him with an awe which straightway saw in them manifestations of the superhuman and the divine. Man was absorbed in nature, a mythical and legendary nature to be sure, but still the nature out of which science was one day to arise. Then, at the call of Socrates, he turned his back on nature and sought to know himself; to learn the secrets of those mysterious and hidden processes by which he felt and thought and acted. The intellectual centre of gravity had passed from nature to man. From that day to this the goal of scholarship has been the understanding of both nature and man, the uniting of them in one scheme or plan of knowledge, and the explaining of them as the offspring of the omnipotent activity of a Creative Spirit, the Christian God. Slow and painful have been the steps toward the goal which to St. Augustine seemed so near at hand, but which has receded through the intervening centuries as the problems grew more complex and as the processes of inquiry became so refined that whole worlds of new and unsuspected facts revealed themselves. Scholars divided into two camps. The one would have ultimate and complete explanations at any cost; the other, overcome by the greatness of the undertaking, held that no explanation in a large or general way was possible. The one camp bred sciolism; the other narrow and helpless specialization.
At this point the modern university problem took its rise; and for over four hundred years the university has been striving to adjust its organization so that it may most effectively bend its energies to the solution of the problem as it is. For this purpose the university's scholars have unconsciously divided themselves into three types or classes: those who investigate and break new ground; those who explain, apply, and make understandable the fruits of new investigation; and those philosophically minded teachers who relate the new to the old, and, without dogma or intolerance, point to the lessons taught by the developing human spirit from its first blind gropings toward the light on the uplands of Asia or by the shores of the Mediterranean, through the insights of the world's great poets, artists, scientists, philosophers, statesmen, and priests, to its highly organized institutional and intellectual life of to-day. The purpose of scholarly activity requires for its accomplishment men of each of these three types. They are allies, not enemies; and happy the age, the people, or the university in which all three are well represented. It is for this reason that the university which does not strive to widen the boundaries of human knowledge, to tell the story of the new in terms that those familiar with the old can understand, and to put before its students a philosophical interpretation of historic civilization, is, I think, falling short of the demands which both society and university ideals themselves may fairly make.
A group of distinguished scholars in separate and narrow fields can no more constitute a university than a bundle of admirably developed nerves, without a brain and spinal cord, can produce all the activities of the human organism.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Scholarship and service : the policies of a national university in a modern democracy https://archive.org/details/scholarshipservi00butluoft (1921)

Life , Men , God , Pain

“When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world … There are a number of threats on a number of levels, but if you are talking about terrorism it is Islamicism … There are other threats out there, but that is the one that I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of actual terrorist threats … homegrown [Islamic] terrorism is something we keep an eye on.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

S. Harper: ‘Islamicism’ Canada’s Biggest Threat: PM http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/453806-islamicism-canadas-biggest-threat-pm.html - OnIslam, September 7, 2011</ref><ref> Harper says 'Islamicism' biggest threat to Canada http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/06/harper-911-terrorism-islamic-interview.html - CBC News, September 6, 2011
2011

People , Truth , World , Thinking

“Shadwell?” said Suzanna.
“Their beloved Prophet,” came the reply. “Beneath that show of holiness I lent him there beats a salesman’s heart.”
So Shadwell was the Prophet. What a perfect irony, that the seller of encyclopedias should end up peddling hope.
“It was his idea,” said the Incantatrix, “to give them a Messiah. Now they’ve got a righteous crusade, as Hobart calls it. They’re going to claim their promised land. And destroy it in the process.”
“They won’t fall for this.”
“They already have, sister. Holy wars are easier to start than rumors among your Kind or mine. They believe every sacred word he tells them, as though their lives depended upon it. Which in a sense they do. They’ve been conspired against and cheated—and they’re ready to tear the Fugue apart to get their hands on those responsible. Isn’t that perfect? The Fugue’ll die at the very hands of those who’ve come to save it.”
“And that’s what Shadwell wants?”

Clive Barker book Weaveworld

“He’s a man: he wants adoration.”She gazed over Suzanna’s shoulder toward the unweaving, and the Salesman, still in its midst. “And that’s what he’s got. So he’s happy.”
Part Seven “The Demagogue”, Chapter x “Fatalities”, Section 1 (p. 321)
Weaveworld (1987), BOOK TWO: THE FUGUE

War , Hope , Idea , Sense

“In recent times secularists are increasingly accusing biblical creationists of “child abuse” for teaching creation to children. Now they are going a step further to show their real intolerance is of Christianity in general. The secularists are directly targeting those who teach the gospel message, which includes telling children that they are sinners. I have said for years that the devil has deliberately targeted the book of Genesis, the foundational book of the Bible, because, if he targeted the Cross, the church would quickly respond and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. But due to the decreasing spiritual state of this nation and increasing intolerance of Christianity, the attacks are becoming more overt against Christianity, and are on the increase.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Children's Ministry accused of Psychologically Damaging Children" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/16/childrens-ministry-accused-of-psychologically-damaging-children/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 16, 2014)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

Children , Books , Time , Christ